Dawson Trotman grew up as an active member of his local church in
Lomita, California in the 1920s. He had made commitments to
Christ on two occasions, and was known for his excellent outward life. However, he was a compulsive liar, and also had a habit of
theft. These habits continued unabated, despite numerous
attempts to curb them by the force of will. After he
graduated high school, he admitted that he could not do it, and gave up
all pretense. He became a pleasure-seeker, gambler, and
womanizer (although remaining sexually pure). One night he
got too drunk to find his car, and was arrested by a police officer. He admitted that he hated his life, and knew his mother was
very worried about him. Several days later, he visited the
church group he had attended at high school. The youth were
divided into teams, and one of the ways to get points for your team was
to memorize verses. So he memorized the ten verses on
salvation, and then another ten the next week. One day, while
he was walking along, one of the verses came to mind that whoever
believes in Christ will have eternal life. He liked that
idea, so he asked God how to do that, and God answered with John 1:12
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become sons of
God, even to them that believe on his name.” And told God
that he wanted to receive Jesus. From that point on, he
devoted his life to God. Over the course of the next months
he quit smoking, cursing, gambling, lying. He told everyone
what had happened to him.

Dawson gave himself completely to the service of God. He was
working in a lumberyard, and slowly began evangelizing there. He would spend hours in the hills praying. Since
the 20 verses he had memorized had made such an impact on him, he began
memorizing one verse a week. He made it a point to tell the
Gospel to one person every day. He sought to have others join
him in these disciplines, and was occasionally successful. His remaining time was spent seeking how lead people closer
to Christ. He spent much time with various groups of boys,
discipling them and trying to work out an effective system of
discipling people. He worked with students at Biola Seminary,
which was close by, to expand these boys’ clubs. A big part
of these clubs was disciplined following of God, in which memorizing
the Bible played a key role. Dawson was willing to pour his
life into someone, but only to someone who was willing to follow the
disciplines, because he viewed them as essential.

He remained an active leader in the club at his church, and after God
physically prevented him from asking the girl he was dating to marry
him, he gave up on girls. The women in charge of the club
asked him to escort the young gals home, and on one of these trips he
met Lila Clayton, then in eighth grade. On impulse, and not
knowing how young she was, he asked if she’d be his sweetheart. She was pleased to be, and he dated and discipled her until
she graduated and turned 18. They were married soon
afterwards. They had a great relationship, and Lila proved to
be a great aid in ministry. She was an able host when Dawson
inevitably invited many people to their house. One point that
was frequently noted was how she was able to make tasty meals that
could accommodate any numbers of people, despite last-minute arrivals.

About this time, Dawson began to be burdened for the sailors in the
Navy port nearby. He began witnessing to the sailors and then
began inviting them to his house for discipleship, as he had realized
that although he had led many people to the Lord during the days when
he was witnessing every day, most of them were no longer continuing in
the faith. Discipleship was important. Eventually
he identified four essential areas: memorizing the Bible,
evangelizing, discipleship, and prayer. These he passed on to
the sailors who would come to his house. He encouraged the
sailors to witness to the sailors on their ship, and begin Bible
studies with those who became Christians, teaching them the Christian
life, just as Dawson was teaching them. Dawson called these
men “key men,” and prayed for a key man on every ship in the fleet. This system was effective, and eventually there were key men
on most ships. Calling themselves “Navigators” (following a
tradition of fishing and sailing metaphors for Christian groups), many
sailors became Christians. These corresponded by mail with
Navigator headquarters (i.e. Dawson), who would answer their questions
and send additional Bible study material as they finished it. By the end of World War II, Navigator staff had increased to
a sizable number of people, complete with a printing press and
additional Dawson/Lila-style homes in several cities.

After the war, Dawson sent key men to the Army camps as well, but so
many people came to Christ that they were overwhelmed and were unable
to follow their discipleship principles and the ministry eventually
faded. However, Dawson did start some groups with businessmen
who, as he put it, wanted to “get down to business” with the Lord, and
had slowly growing success in the Navigator style there. This
also helped out with funding, which had previously consisted of Dawson
having complete faith that the Lord would provide somehow, and sure
enough, sailors would bring him random checks at the last minute for
exactly the right amount. (So much so, that they were
surprised whenever there was extra, but inevitably the extra covered a
need that was soon to happen.) Dawson also had a partnership
with Charles Fuller, the radio evangelist. Through the
businessmen’s groups, Dawson met Billy Graham, and over a few meetings
of over the course of several years, substantially influenced him. He also influenced Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade. In the summers, Dawson organized summer meetings with the
sailors and other groups that he administered, in order to have an
opportunity for intense discipleship and training of the leaders.

The Nagivator work slowly expanded, requiring that they move
headquarters in to a mansion in San Diego (it was perfect for inviting
people over!). Dawson took a trip to South American with
Wycliffe, and encouraged many of the key men who were finishing their
time in the Navy to go overseas with Wycliffe. Later, he
became involved with training the church members who did follow-up at
Billy Graham’s Crusades. Then he was asked to come to Europe,
to speak to people in those countries. He came back convinced
of urgent needs all over Europe, and after later trips, in China,
India, South America, and Africa. Dawson began praying for
key men to go to these countries. He realized that while an
evangelistic event could bring many people to Christ at once, it was
far more effective to invest in a few men to bring them to be
Christ-centered, who would then do the same. In a few years,
far more people would be reached for God than through events. Dawson died in a lake accident in the summer of 1956 at age 50, while
rescuing a non-swimmer who had been thrown from the boat. In
his eulogy, Billy Graham said that Dawson had influenced more people
than anyone he had ever known.

Dawson seems to have been a man who loved discipline and, as a leader,
had a tendency to be autocratic. Even in at the end, he was
still directly involved in daily affairs at the Navigators. This is both good, in that he was involved in ministry as
well as directing it, but bad in that he probably should have delegated
things like choosing the color of paint. His autocracy seems
like it had a tendency to alienate people less structured than him, and
his insistence on discipline and adherence to his philosophy, while
intended to bring people into Christ-likeness, sometimes had excess
rigidity to it. However, all who knew him said that he was
always ready to pour his life into others and bring them to
Christ-likeness. And the discipline was effective in bringing
many closer to God, even those who initially resisted it. Skinner notes that discipline imposed externally is not
effective unless there is an internal desire to follow it, and also
that people rarely achieve their potential without discipline.

Several things that I read struck me as particularly important. First, you
cannot abandon your spiritual babies. One of the
sailors had led someone to Christ and asked Dawson to follow up with
him. Dawson responded, “Listen Mack. You are going
to look him up, write him a letter, and see that he is taken care of
and begins to grow. You are his spiritual dad and he’s your
responsibility. No, you’re not gonna park you baby on my
doorstep.” (p. 157). Second, effectiveness in witness is
related to how much Scripture you have memorized. One time, speaking at a church gathering, when one of the
sailors incorrectly quoted the one verse he did know, Dawson said “This
man is on a destroyer flotilla based at Treasure Island. And
what’s God doing on his shop? Nothing!” That
sailor’s friend confirmed it to him on the ride home: “Daws was right
in what he did. God isn’t
working on your ship.” He “began to dig in and soon the
results showed on his ship and in his life.” (p. 206)
I am unsure if memorizing is necessarily the key; it is probably reading and thinking about the word of God
that is important. However, I have been finding that it is
much more effective illustrate points with the Bible than merely
presenting the principles (it being God’s double-edged sword [Heb 4:12]
and all). Doing this in an impromptu setting, such as
evangelism, is aided by memorizing verses. Third, pursue excellence and a better
way of doing ministry. Dawson insisted
on excellency: if it is to be done, it should be done well. When sailors printed Navigator materials with the machine at
headquarters, Dawson insisted that the output be excellent, because
anything less is not honoring to God. Part of excellence was
searching for a more efficient or effective way of doing things. One of the youth clubs had a much better memory retention
rate than the others, and it was because they said the verse number
after, as well as before, the verse. Seeing this, he
implemented it in all the groups.

Daws was
given by one of the (Navigators) missionaries that I support
as a gift to all her supporters. One of the main strengths of
the book is that it details daily minutiae of Dawson’s life, thoughts,
and values, and it is kind of like being mentored by him. In Axioms, Bill Hybels
notes that indirect mentoring through reading biographies or observing
someone’s life from a distance, can be as effective as in person. Daws
has that kind of effectiveness, transmitting Dawson’s key values
strongly enough for me to absorb some of them. However, the
minutiae gets in the way of seeing a coherent picture of the spiritual
lessons that should be learned, and has a tendency for the book to seem
somewhat incoherent at times. Still, although the writing has
some serious failings, if you are looking for a mentor, as I was, this
book is a good choice.

Review: 7 (writing 5, effectiveness 9)

The writing is, in my
opinion, decidedly average. It is hard to understand the
importance of any individual item or lesson. Sometimes a
lesson is important to Dawsons’s life and will reappear later; sometimes it will not, but it is presented the same in either
case. Occasionally the grammar was hard to follow. I suspect that the book suffers from having too much research
and being unwilling to leave out any nugget, however small. However, the effect of all the nuggets is that while the big
picture suffers, the reader gets an excellent of how Dawson would react
to different situations. And, until you know this, do you
really know a person?